Another slaughter of Palestinians by Israel
Under the pretext of rockets thrown from the Gaza strip on November 14th in reply to the murder of a 12-year old Palestinian child shot by an Israeli soldier, the Netanyahu government assassinated Ahmed Jaabari, one of the Hamas leaders, who has restricted such shots yet.
Mr. Jabari wasn’t just interested in a long-term cease-fire; he was also the person responsible for enforcing previous cease-fire understandings brokered by the Egyptian intelligence agency… On the morning that he was killed, Mr. Jabari received a draft proposal for an extended cease-fire with Israel… (Gershon Baskin, New York Times, November 16th)
Once again, the excessively armed Israeli State turned into hell the ghetto named Gaza. In the week from November 14th to 21st, the army killed more than 160 Palestinians (including 26 children) and injured more than 1200. In the West Bank, the Israeli army killed 2 Palestinians, injured more than 70 and kidnapped 55. Besides, it blasted a large number of facilities on the Gaza strip, destroyed the international press room, and bombed the tunnel based on the Egyptian border which fuels the economy under Israeli blockade.
Through the extension of colonies and through war, the Israeli policy aims to liquidate the Palestinians, in expelling them and in killing them. The operation “Pillar of Defense” aims to be a warning to the Arab and Berber revolutionaries who threw down the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes which collaborated with Israel. It shows that whether the Fatah bows and scrapes at the UN for getting “a status of non-member observer State” does not protect the Palestinians at all.
Clinton, for the US diplomacy, and Morsi, for the Muslim Brotherhood which rules in Egypt, with the support of Turkey and of Qatar, reached a truce from November 22nd. Netanyahu negotiated with Morsi, who takes part to the Gaza blockade and keeps the agreements signed by Mubarak with Israel. They share an activity: the assassination of workers and young people who intend to fight against the imperialist rule, against the Zionist colonization, for the rights of the workers, of the national and religious minorities.
In collusion with the western imperialist powers and with the Egyptian State
The US president Obama, who subsidizes Israel and its army, stated on November 16th: “Israel has right to defend itself”. On the same day, Fabius, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated: “Israel is surely allowed to defend itself”. Both the US and the European Union gave Netanyahu free hands for one week. Obama and Hollande side with the oppressor against the oppressed. Since its creation in 1948, with the support of the US, of France, of Britain and of the former Soviet Union, Israel has been based on the ethnic cleansing of its current territory, on the permanent war against the Palestinian territories that slip out of its hands and against the neighboring States, on the pursuit of the colonization in the West Bank and in Jerusalem.
The Islamist governments from Turkey and from Egypt, the Emir of Qatar and the Princes of Bahrain backed the Hamas which rules the Gaza strip. Yet, if the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is worrying about people’s freedom, why does he imprison thousands of revolutionary activists, why does his army put Kurdish people down? If the Princes of Bahrain are concerned about the freedom of the Arab people, why did they crush the general strike and slaughtered the demonstrators in March 2011? If the Emir of Qatar opposes any foreign rule, why does he host a US military basis? If the Egyptian president Morsi is concerned about the Palestinian cause, why doesn’t he open the border between Egypt and the Gaza strip?
All the bourgeois States in the region defend the artificial borders inherited from the French and British colonization, they overexploit the Palestinian migrant workers, they discriminate and expel them, exactly like the Zionist do. The Iranian ayatollahs, the Hamas from Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt and the monarchies from the Arab-Persian Gulf are all together more efficient in oppressing women and young people, in banning unions and strikes, in defending the private property than in fighting against Zionism and against the imperialist powers.
In return, the imperialist powers support the Islamist parties in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya and in Syria as a defense against the socialist revolution since the 2011 popular uprising in the region.
For the workers’ united front against Zionism and against the national oppression
All the organizations which refer to the workers and to socialism must demand:
- Immediate halt of Gaza bombings! Lifting of the blockade in Gaza and in the West bank!
- Destruction of the apartheid wall! Liberation of all the Palestinian prisoners! Right of return for all the refugees and their descendants!
- No weapon, no military aid for Israel! Withdrawal of the imperialist troops in Afghanistan, in Lebanon and in Iraq, withdrawal of the US military fleet from the Mediterranean Sea and from the Indian Ocean, closing of the imperialist military bases in Near-East and in Middle-East!
The best way to help the Palestinians is the fight for overthrowing the governments, in the United States, in Europe, in the Middle-East, which support the Zionist State.
The destruction of the State of Israel is the condition for a unified, secular, multi-ethnic and socialist Palestine
Putting an end to the national oppression suffered by the Palestinian Arabs amounts to the destruction of the racist, warmongering and colonialist Israeli State, which is a tool of imperialism in the Middle-East. This is the only foundation on which a secular, multi-ethnic Palestine can be established on the whole territory of Palestine, in which Arabs and Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists will be able to live together. Such a Palestine will only be viable with the expansion of the revolution, the abolition of borders inherited from colonization and the establishment of the socialist Federation of Middle-East.
The Palestinian bourgeoisie, whether it is Pan-Arab (Fatah) or Islamist (Hamas), cannot free Palestine because it has always favored the collaboration with the neighboring bourgeois States instead of the mobilization of the workers from cities and from the countryside which would have led to the questioning of the private property. The national bourgeoisie, in advocating the misleading unity of all the Arabs or of all the Muslims, has proved unable to address to the working class of the whole region.
The working class, in winning over the peasants and the students, is the social force which is able to liquidate the Zionist colonization and the imperialist rule, to emancipate the youth and the women, to give the land to the peasants and to provide the economic development.
Permanent Revolution Collective / Austria, Peru, France www.revolucionpermanente.com
Comité Communiste Internationaliste (Trotskyste) / France www.cci-t.org